by N. D. Wilson
“Two and a half!”
For a moment, Cindy was perfectly still. Quiet. No rage flowing up into Sam’s mind. For a moment, Sam felt like he might be in control.
And then his left arm exploded forward, dragging Sam into a cupboard under the counter, snapping shelves under his weight. Sam’s thumb jumped up, cocking the hammer. Footsteps raced from right to left through the store and then twin guns roared. Bullets punched through the wood just above Sam’s head, spitting splinters against his neck and into his hair.
Rattle buzzing, Cindy bent Sam’s arm, tracking her target through the wood. Sam shut his eyes and he could see the moving outline of a man made only of body heat.
Cindy fired right at it.
Sam yelped. The shot was so loud it was like the round had gone off inside his skull. Shrieking needles burrowed deep into his ears, followed by wool. Gunpowder burned inside his nostrils and in the back of his throat.
His body began to shake, and he wanted to cry.
He didn’t hear Rattles tumble to the floor. He didn’t hear the clicking as Cindy continued to cock and fire, but he could feel his thumb and finger moving. He didn’t look to see what she was trying to fire at.
Sam hurt. And the hurt was somewhere much deeper than his body. It shook inside him. It wanted to peel him open and crawl out. Hot tears streamed down his cheeks and his ribs quaked.
One hundred versions of Sam’s life lined up in his memory, sharper and tidier than they had ever been. Perfectly preserved versions of him, of his living, of his story. A record of El Buitre’s vandalism, of Father Tiempo’s doomed interventions.
Killing hurt Sam more than being killed ever had. And that hurt brought everything back.
It was like watching a game of chess where every single possible move has been made and countered, unmade and made and countered again. A priest playing against a vulture. A flurry of moves and failures and defeats, one hundred years of game swirling through Sam’s mind in a cyclone of seconds. The pieces moved and reset and moved and reset, until every option was painfully exhausted. Pieces were lost—sacrificed. And those pieces were people.
He’d remembered flashes before, but never all at once, and with such razor brutality.
In Baltimore, his grandfather had died fighting burglars. Died fighting kidnappers on the docks. Died fighting trained dogs, but always he had kept men from taking small Sam. His mother had taken a hunter’s stray bullet. A knife. Been trampled by horses. His father had eaten poisoned bread, drunk from a poisoned well, been run off a cliff by outlaws, been scorched carrying Sam from a burning barn. They had died because they loved him, plain and simple, not because they wanted him to go fight some vulture. They had died over and over and over again, because they had loved him over and over and over again.
And priests had died, too. Dozens of them.
And Millie. Too many times. And Glory.
Glory, too? Sam remembered lying in the Spaldings’ living room with her, both of them bleeding, both of them dying. The priest had moved their souls. Those bodies had died.
Not this time. Not Millie. Not Glory. He couldn’t let it happen.
GLORY HELD HER BREATH. HER EARDRUMS WERE THROBBING and her heart was jumping. The fighting outside was a lot more than a gunfight. It sounded like a war. She had no idea how they would get out. Nobody out there had been friendly. Inside the store, Rattles hadn’t stirred since he’d crashed to the floor, and Sam was still flopped on his face inside the counter.
“Sam? Are you hit?” His back was shaking. Was he laughing? Crying?
The clerk folded his newspaper and set it down, now undisturbed.
“Girlie,” he said. “You know I sell clothes. And gloves. If Poncho there should ever want to hide those hands.”
Glory crawled forward, leaning over Sam. His left arm was twisted around; Cindy cocked the pistol, pointing it at her face.
“Stop!” She slammed Cindy down with both hands and then jerked the gun away. Then she tossed it to the clerk. “Load this.” Then she grabbed Sam by the belt and dragged him out of the counter cupboard.
Men were shouting in the street outside.
SAM SAT UP AND HANDED GLORY HIS EMPTY GUN. THE clerk slid a box of ammunition out of a cupboard.
“What now?” Glory asked.
Sam stared at her. “I killed him.”
“You don’t know that.” She loaded one gun as quickly as she could while the clerk loaded the other. “Maybe a stray bullet got him from outside.”
Sam looked down at Cindy, splaying the fingers on his left hand.
“I know,” Sam said. “I . . . saw.”
Cindy’s sharp eyes sparkled beneath her scale horns. She had stopped rattling but she was still explosive with excitement, tickling him with smooth shivering pulses from shoulder blade to knuckle. On his right hand, Speck just seemed nervous. Twitchy.
Sam grabbed on to the edge of the high counter and pulled himself up. Twenty feet away, Rattles lay on his back with both of his guns drawn.
“I killed him.” Sam clenched his fists and tensed his arms until every muscle fiber shook beneath skin and scales. The bullet breaks in his bones ached like new. He wanted to yell, but his voice came out cold. “I hate this. Hate, hate, hate.”
“Sam . . .” Glory stood up beside him.
“I want it to end.” Sam took back his revolver from Glory, tucking it into his right holster. “They keep killing everyone and Father Tiempo just lets them. He lets them all die just so that I won’t. Like they’re all worth sacrificing just to give me a chance at killing the Vulture. My mother, my father, my grandfather, my sister. You.”
“Me? No. Not yet, at least. And the priest says you died a lot, too,” Glory said. “And he died more than anybody.” She took the loaded gun from the clerk on the floor, along with the open box of bullets. Then she shoved the gun into Sam’s left holster. “That Red guy probably really is out back, but we’ll have a better chance there than out front.” She looked back down at the clerk. “Fastest way to the train station?”
Before the clerk could answer, Sam vaulted the counter and began walking for the front door.
“Sam!” Glory yelled. “Stop! Don’t be stupid.”
SAM STEPPED OVER RATTLES. THE MAN CINDY—NO, he—had killed lay faceup with his legs twisted beneath him. A single bloody bullet hole marked his heart. Sam looked straight into the dead man’s eyes. He felt like he should say something. Instead, he bent over and took both of Rattles’s guns, quickly checking the chambers. Two rounds in the left gun, three in the right.
Cindy immediately tried to cock and fire, but Sam slammed the back of his hand against a shelf.
KILL.
“No!” Sam snarled the command like a wolf. Cindy twitched his finger toward the trigger, but Sam forced it back. Focusing his anger, he shot threats down his arm like talons, but hot and smoking.
Obey! I will cut you out of me with broken glass. I will burn my whole arm off if I have to but you will obey me you stupid Cindy snake do you understand me or I will do it right now!
Cindy was as still and silent as a possum playing dead.
Good, Sam thought. Obey.
“Sam?” Glory asked. She sounded scared. “I know you’re upset, but please let’s try the back. Please?”
Sam shrugged his poncho up onto his shoulders, and then, with both of Rattles’s guns pointed straight up, he moved to the front door. His brain itched with strange knowledge. Layered-up lives. Archived failures.
He was done. No more people dying for him. No more people killing to get to him. He was right here, and he was ready. If he died now, then he wasn’t good enough to beat El Buitre anyway, and no one else would ever have to die protecting him. But if he died now, at least bad men would die with him.
His heartbeat was slow, but each thrum was an earthquake, shaking his core. Sweat beaded on his nose. Fear pooled in his stomach, but anger filled his arms. He listened to his hands, and both of his hands listened to him. His rattle
s began to buzz.
Guns pointed at the sky, Sam Miracle stepped out into the sun.
DOC HOLLIDAY SAW IT ALL, AND HE WASN’T THE ONLY ONE. When the Poncho Kid had ducked into the shop, the whole situation had gone from street standoff to full-on war in no time. But only because there were plenty of cowboys in Tombstone who wanted to see the end of the Earp brothers and their gambling dentist friend. Word had gone out quick that the Tinman was in town. If anyone could take down Doc, it was the Tinman.
Rattles had followed the boy. Red had ridden his horse around the block toward the back of the buildings. The Tinman stayed in the middle of the street. Seven cowboys had come out of the alleys and taken up positions behind rain barrels and stairs and benches. One with a shotgun, two with rifles, four with revolvers, all with smiles.
In Tombstone, Arizona, this was better than Christmas.
Morgan Earp pinched his mustache with his lower lip and raised his weapon to his shoulder, quickly swinging it from target to target. Tall, jowly Virgil drew his guns and stepped closer to his brother. But Doc and the Tinman simply stared at each other.
And then a sharp whistle rolled down the street behind Doc. A familiar voice followed.
“You having a party, Doc? Why wasn’t I invited?”
Wyatt had arrived on horseback. The most famous Earp. The legend. The man with the stubbornest jaw and the scrawniest neck and the widest curled handlebar mustache in all of Tombstone. And pinned to his chest, a shiny piece of badge tin that Tiny would prize above all his other tin trophies.
“Now, Wyatt, you know better than that,” Doc said. “You’re always invited, and I’ve already filled up your dance card.”
Wyatt wasn’t one for chatter. He slid off his horse, slapped its rump, and then pulled his long coat behind his back, freeing up his gun hand, and immediately drew his pearl-handled Colt.
But three Earp brothers and one gunslinging dentist were not enough.
Bullets began to fly. Doc dove toward a horse trough in front of a stable, but a bullet caught him in the thigh. The Tinman put Wyatt on his back, and with both guns drawn, he walked forward at an angle, winging Morgan in the shoulder and sending Virgil scurrying. The elongated man in the tight suit and bowler hat dropped his guns when they were empty and stepped behind the corner of a building to pull two backups.
From there it was all crawling and kicking dust and splintering wood. But the Earp brothers were done. Doc knew it. Every cowboy there knew it. The Tinman had nine men fighting for him, and Doc and the Earps were already hit and fighting back from the dirt.
The lawdog legends of the west had found their final page.
Until the boy stepped out of the general store.
He had shrugged his poncho up onto his shoulders so his lean, scarred, sun-brown arms were bare. And he had the most detailed tattoos that Doc had ever seen—snakes that ran the lengths of his arms. Only . . .
GLORY HAD TRIED TO STOP HIM. SHE’D BEGGED AND BOSSED and grabbed his poncho, but Sam had given her a look that hit harder than a punch to the face. As she watched him leave the store, she was sure that she was seeing the end of Sam Miracle. The Vulture would have his way with whatever parts of the world he might want, and she . . . she would be in Tombstone. Alone. Ducking low against the front wall, Glory watched out of an already broken window.
SAM MIRACLE CROSSED THE WOODEN SIDEWALK AND STEPPED out into the dirt street. Cindy and Speck were so tight and excited, his arms felt like electric stone. For a split second, the gunfire paused as all eyes focused on him. And then Sam started firing.
Doc’s gun shot out of his hand at the same time as Wyatt’s, and the boy threw away his empty weapon and pulled a new one. His arms blurred and snapped like whips, and his gunfire was more like rolling thunder than separate pops. Virgil lost both of his guns, Morgan lost his rifle and his backup at the same time that Wyatt lost his.
And the boy hadn’t even looked in their direction. Doc stayed low and kept his second gun well out of sight.
On the other end of the street, bodies were dropping. A cowboy fell off stairs, another from behind a barrel, a third, and then the kid’s left hand changed revolvers so fast that Doc only knew because the empty one hit the dirt at the boy’s feet. Red Beard reappeared with guns raised, but dropped before he could even set down his first step. A holy hush spread out around Sam as the echoes died. The guns were silent and the street was as still as a funeral. In less than five seconds, one kid had silenced the biggest fight Tombstone had ever seen.
SAM EXHALED AND TOOK HIS FIRST BREATH. HE GLANCED around, assessing the living and the dead. It wasn’t over, despite the silence. He ignored Speck, but sweat was pouring off him as he fought to control Cindy. She was trained on the corner of the building where Tiny had taken cover. But Sam could feel her distraction. There were other living things in the street that she could strike while she was waiting for the tall stretched one.
Obey.
He tensed his arm to keep her from swinging around on the Earp brothers. It wasn’t easy. Especially now that the Earps were coming out from their cover and trying to stand. But they weren’t threatening him, and Speck would take care of them if they did.
“Tiny!” Sam shouted. He licked salty lips. “You want me? Well, here I am. Take me to the Vulture and let’s get this over with.”
Wyatt Earp cleared his throat. Half of his mustache was drooping. “Son, you aren’t going anywhere. Nobody fires on a deputy in my town without saying hello to a judge.”
“Mr. Earp!” Sam shouted, anger still rumbling through him. “Sir! I just saved your life, so leave me be. Tiny! How about it? I want El Buitre and El Buitre wants me. Show me the way.”
“Now, why would I do a thing like that?” Tiny asked. Only the very tip of his boot was visible.
“Your other choice is dying,” Sam said. “Come on out.”
“With your hands up,” Wyatt added.
“Or down,” Sam said. “Or with your guns pointed right at me. I don’t care. You know you’re not fast enough.”
Cindy was aiming at about chest height. But Sam brought Speck around and tried to focus him on the shifting toe of Tiny’s motorcycle boot.
Glory slipped out of the store and crossed the wooden sidewalk, hurrying toward Sam. She grabbed the back of his poncho and looked around the street. “I can’t believe you’re alive,” she said quietly. “I could hug you right now. Or kick you for being so stupid selfish. Now, come on. Let’s go. Right now. While we still can.”
“I’m working on it,” Sam said.
Speck fired and the tip of Tiny’s boot exploded. The outlaw yelped and the boot disappeared.
Wyatt limped forward, pulling a fresh gun from inside his coat and pointing it at Sam.
“That one’s empty, Poncho, and you only got one round in the other. Use it on me and the Tinman over there kills you. But use it on him, and I’ve got you. I’m not letting an outlaw with your type o’ condition roam free.”
“Seriously?” Sam looked at the famous lawman in disbelief. “I just saved you and both your brothers and your dentist. And I’m not an outlaw.”
“Son,” Wyatt said. “You fired on me and you fired on my deputies.”
“Now, Wyatt,” Doc said, climbing to his feet. “We’d all be counting the knotholes in our coffins tonight if it weren’t for the boy. And he’s hunting the right game.” He tossed his second gun through the air toward Sam. Speck dropped his empty one and snatched Doc’s, immediately covering Tiny’s corner again.
“Kid,” Doc said, removing his hat and bowing painfully. His pale-mushroom skin glistened with sweat. “Poncho, allow me to apologize for my obstruction and for the obstruction of my simple, law-loving friends here. Yours is clearly a unique situation. We wish you victory and Godspeed.”
Wyatt sniffed, saying nothing. Finally, he holstered his gun, tugged his drooping mustache up, and nodded.
“Great,” Glory said. “Come on, Sam. We shouldn’t be alive, but we are. If we wan
t to stay that way we need to move, like, now. He knows exactly where we are.”
“Not without Tiny.” Sam looked back where Speck was still pointing Doc’s revolver. “I’m going to need help sneaking up on a Vulture when he’s already hunting me.” He glanced at Wyatt. “Can I borrow handcuffs?” he asked. “Have those been invented yet?”
11
The Road through Darkness
MILLIE WAS ASLEEP. IN HER DREAMS, SHE WAS IN WEST VIRGINIA, watching Sam snore in the hayloft of the barn where they had hidden for the night. Moonlight from the pigeon roost lit her brother’s bony back, and he looked no more alive than a lumpy sack in the straw. Like the priest had told her, they had stayed hidden in the day, and had moved only after sunset for the last week—ever since they’d put both their parents in the ground.
But they needed to find food soon. Millie had been pretending to divide what they had evenly, but the truth was that Sam was eating all of it and Millie was starving. She hadn’t had a bite in three days. Her stomach felt like it had twisted up into a knot that would never untie and her head felt like it was trying to shrink in on itself. Her vision never seemed to quite—
A shadow sliced through the moonlight on Sam, and Millie flinched. A large pair of wings flared in the roost above them. Something grazed her cheek. A feather? She brushed at it but there was nothing there. It grazed her again and she brushed at it again. The big bird was looking down at her from the roost. An owl? If it was, she hoped it would drop its rabbit or mouse or whatever it might have caught. She was that hungry.
The bird spread its wide shadowy wings. And it dove at her.
Millie screamed and jerked away, and as she did, she woke.
She was still in her chair with her ankles and hands tied.
The Vulture was looming over the chessboard, lowering a long-fingered hand from her cheek. His wavy black hair practically dripped with darkness. His eyes sparkled anger in the lamplight, and he was forcing a wide gleaming smile above his pointed beard. His gums were more gray than pink.
Millie leaned as far back in her chair as she could. “What are you doing?” she asked.
